LINCOLNTON – After being denied for a state park grant last year, county planners were forced to rethink how it planned to build Denver’s East Lincoln Rescue Park off Galway Lane.

In a presentation to the county Board of Commissioners Monday night, Jan. 9, Parks and Recreation Director Erma Deen Hoyle said the plan now is to complete the park in stages, rather than all at once.

Guy Cline, chair of the Rotary Club Foundation, said scaling it back might improve the plan’s chances of getting a state grant.

“It’s not that we’re abandoning any part of the original plan,” Cline said Wednesday, Jan. 11. “We’re just taking bites off at a time.”

The first phase of the project will include a playground, three picnic tables with shelters, a walking trail, nine holes of disc golf and two multipurpose fields suitable for football, soccer and lacrosse.

In the future, Cline said, the park will also have a dog park, a multipurpose shelter with restrooms, additional picnic tables and playground equipment and an amphitheatre.

The Denver-Lake Norman Rotary Club has led the effort to construct a public park near Lincoln Charter School, and Cline said the change allows the Rotary and county to reduce their grant request by almost $100,000.

“The Rotary Foundation has about $240,000 on hand now. We’re asking for $352,000 in the grant, so we’re not far from having enough to totally match it,” Cline told the board.

At Monday’s meeting, the board also:

• Heard a request to rezone property at the intersection of N.C. 73 and Amity Church Road to allow Renee Reel to develop an area for small neighborhood businesses, like a restaurant, bank or small retail shop. The county Planning Board voted unanimously to approve the rezoning.

• Approved a design contract for $94,200 for the Rock Springs Park. Wirth and Associates, of Charlotte, will design it.

• Heard an update from Jim Stewart, of Stewart, Cooper, Newell Architecture, on the county’s plan to renovate the former hospital building into county offices. This project will take a few years to complete.

• Approved a request from the Planters Ridge neighborhood, across from East Lincoln Middle School, to be added to the county’s water system.

• Voted to hold the next board meeting on Jan. 30.